N.Y. offers guidelines for treating 9/11-related physical illness

[sabra]

http://www.newschannel5.tv/News/Other/3712/

N.Y. offers guidelines for treating 9/11-related physical illness

WASHINGTON (AP) - Five years after the September 11th attacks, New York City's Health Department is giving doctors guidelines for how to treat people exposed to the toxic dust and debris.

The guidelines warn, among other things, that smoking cigarettes can make physical health problems worse.

The agency has already handed out instructions for treating post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and mental illness. But health experts wanted more information about physical side-effects, especially for people who have since moved to other parts of the country.

Thousands of firefighters, police officers and construction workers who worked in the World Trade Center rubble have been screened since the attacks. The Associated Press reported earlier that hundreds of workers in more than 30 other states have sought treatment for exposure to toxic Ground Zero dust.

[pooja]

1. The company that I was working around that time was an environmental

testing facility. In order to qualify to go to the testing site you had to be able to certified for Respitory equipment. (picture spaceman outfit). And the majority of the work was collecting paperwork (figure that one out). Either the co. was outbid or the govt didn't want even private co. collecting paperwork--project was scrapped.

[Hekate]

3. ?Was it "paperwork" that had carbonless copies exposed to insecticide?

That can result in very toxic fumes. I have a social worker friend who became very ill from researching adoption files that had been stored where everything was fumigated for bugs.

Hekate

[KT2000]

2. Please note

this is not the first environmental disaster but it is the first that has required a somewhat appropriate response from the medical community in its aftermath.

I hope people realize that the medical community knows next to nothing about treating environmental illnesses and has stubbornly refused to learn. They are heavily influenced by corporations that fear liability.

We are in no way prepared for any further environmental disasters. Unless people and patients demand education of the medical community without interference from the corporations it will reamin that way. Any one of us could be next.